Year in Review - 2025

2025 was a fun year for reading. My goal was to read 36 books, which has been my goal for some years now. It's a great goal for me because it's always a little challenging to hit but somehow I always get there and it never makes reading feel like a chore. I also set out two other reading goals for the year that I didn't end up hitting:

• I wanted to finish Joan Didion's entire list of work
• I wanted to read from Roosevelt to Roosevelt in terms of my presidential biographies quest (so 7 biographies)

Regarding Didion's work, I fell 3 books short in 2025. In terms of presidential biographies, I only read 2 biographies (though I ended up reading 3 books on Teddy Roosevelt which amassed to roughly 2,000 pages).

A few categories and highlights from the year:

Reading Huck Finn and James together

My bestie Jacob and I decided to read the classic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain and James by Percival Everett together because we had heard amazing things about James - a book about the story of Huck Finn told from the slave, Jim's point of view. Neither of us had read Huckleberry Finn before though, so we started with that and then read James. I think James was my first 5 star read of the year.

I read a lot of autobiographies

I find autobiographies super easy to read and fun, so I branched out with various different people. I honestly like all the bios I read but I think Ina Garten's, Be Ready When the Luck Happens was the most fun. The Autobiography of Gucci Mane is also a fun one and I got to know a lot more about him and about trap music.

I read two Didion's, two Sedaris' and two Baldwin books

Both Baldwin and Sedaris were new authors for me most were 5 stars. The one I gave 4/5 stars was Calypso by David Sedaris which I actually listened to on audiobook and that was a real treat. Baldwin totally blew me away and I think If Beale Street Could Talk was possibly my favorite book of the year. Excited to read more of his works.

I joined my first book club!

Shoutout to Paige, Jess, Miranda, Sasi, Jenna, Ankit, Kedar, & Usmann for letting me join bookclub, making it fun, and for expanding by breadth of book genres I read this year.

I read some really great fiction

Two 5 star fiction books worth calling out are Enigma Variations by Andre Aciman and The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. Jacob had told me he loved The Nickel Boys movie that was nominated for an Oscar in 2024, so I figured I'd read it first. Enigma Variations I believe is also being made into a movie with Jeremy Allen White as the main character and I cannot waitttttt.

So what's in store for 2026? Hopefully more of the same! One of my favorite things about reading this past year was chit chatting with Jacob about what we're reading and what we're excited to pick up next. I'd like to continue that in 2026. I'd also like to pickup where I left off and actually finish Didion's bibliography as well as read up until FDR in my presidential series. I'd like to read more James Baldwin and maybe some more Michael Pollan. And lastly, my mom has inspired me to get off Goodreads and onto Storygraph, so hopefully that sticks in 2026!

-RR